“What may your name be, Auntie?” she asked at length, uneasy at the furtive glances cast by the eyes of the silent figure seated in the distant shadow of the chimney-corner. The eyes never wavered, but no answer was vouchsafed her by the woman in the corner. Somewhere she had read a description of an African princess which fitted the woman before her.

“I knew a princess; she was old,

Crisp-haired, flat-featured, with a look

Such as no dainty pen of gold

Would write of in a fairy book.

…Her face was like a Sphinx’s face, to me,

Touched with vast patience, desert grace,

And lonesome, brooding mystery.”26

Suddenly a low sound, growing gradually louder, fell upon Dianthe’s ear; it was the voice of the old woman crooning a mournful minor cadence, but for an instant it sent a chill about the girl’s heart. It was a funeral chant commonly sung by the Negroes over the dead. It chimed in with her gloomy, despairing mood and startled her. She arose hastily to her feet to leave the place.

“How can I reach the road to Livingston Place?” she asked with a shudder of apprehension as she glanced at her entertainer.

“Don’t be ’feared, child; Aunt Hannah won’t hurt a ha’r of that purty head. Hain’t it these arms done mussed ev’ry Livingston? I knowed your mother, child; for all you’re married to Marse Aubrey, you isn’t a white ’ooman.”

“I do not deny what you say, Auntie; I have no desire so to do,” replied Dianthe gently.

With a cry of anguish the floodgates of feeling were unloosed, and the old Negress flung her arms about the delicate form. “Gawd-a-mercy! My Mira’s gal! My Mira’s gal!” Then followed a harrowing scene.

Dianthe listened to the old story of sowing the wind and reaping the whirlwind. A horrible, paralyzing dread was upon her. Was she never to cease from suffering and be at rest? Rocking herself to and fro, and moaning as though in physical pain, the old woman told her story.

“I was born on de Livingston place, an’ bein’ a purty likely gal, was taken to de big house when I was a tot. I was trained by ol’ Miss’. As soon as I was growed up, my mistress changed in her treatment of me, for she soon knowed of my relations with massa, an’ she was hurt to de heart, po’ ’ooman. Mira was de onlies’ child of ten that my massa lef’ me for my comfort; all de res’ were sold away to raise de mor’gage off de prop’rty.